The impact of local black residents’ socioeconomic status on white residents’ racial views

Abstract

This paper extends the study of contextual influences on racial attitudes by asking how the SES of the local black community shapes the racial attitudes of local whites. Using responses to the 1998–2002 General Social Surveys merged with year 2000 census data, we compare the influences of black educational and economic composition on white residents’ attitudes. Finally, the independence of these effects from the impact of white contextual SES is assessed. Across three dimensions of racial attitudes, white residents’ views are more positive in localities where the black population contains more college graduates. However, such localities tend also to have highly educated white populations, as well as higher incomes among blacks and whites, and the multiple influences are inseparable. In contrast, many racial attitude measures show an independent effect of black economic composition, white residents reporting more negative views where the local African American community is poorer.

A mathematical approach to study and forecast racial groups interactions: deterministic modeling and scenario method

“…Third, we argue that the socioeconomic status is a determinant of the kind of interaction among groups. This is corroborated by research showing that racial attitudes shape (Huffman and Cohen 2004 ) and are shaped (Taylor and Reyes 2014 ) by the SES of the racial groups. In other words, we build on the assumption that there is a relationship between multi-racial dynamics and socioeconomic status.…”

“…Taken together, (i) and (ii) show that the interactions among groups are influenced by their respective SES via attitudes. However, while there is a general consensus in the literature that racial group SES affects racial interactions (Branton and Jones 2005 ; Taylor and Reyes 2014 ), scholars disagree on the direction of this effect. On the one hand, literature on racial group competition and threat argues that minorities with high SES foster negative attitudes in the dominant White group (Blumer 1958 ; Blalock 1967 ).…”

Role-Model-In-Chief: Understanding a Michelle Obama Effect

“…It is possible that socioeconomic status affects racial attitudes (Branton and Jones 2005;Marschall and Stolle 2004;Oliver and Mendelberg 2000;Taylor and Reyes 2014;but see Taylor and Mateyka 2011), so we included measures of educational attainment (question 54), an ordinal item that ranged from 0 ¼ 8th grade or less to 1 ¼ postgraduate training. The median category for this variable was "some college."…”

“…It is possible that socioeconomic status affects racial attitudes (Branton and Jones 2005; Marschall and Stolle 2004; Oliver and Mendelberg 2000; Taylor and Reyes 2014; but see Taylor and Mateyka 2011), so we included measures of educational attainment (question 54), an ordinal item that ranged from 0 = 8th grade or less to 1 = postgraduate training. The median category for this variable was “some college.” We also controlled for income level (question 62) using an ordinal item that ranged from 0 = under $20,000 to 1 = $250,000 or more (the median income bracket was $50,000 to $65,000).…”

Remembering where we're from: Community‐ and individual‐level predictors of college students' White privilege awareness

“…Objective SES is often measured using parent education (e.g., Kraus et al, 2009). The literature has shown diverging associations between parent education and attitudes about race and privilege (Grossman & Charmaraman, 2009; Taylor & Reyes, 2014). For example, McClelland and Linnander (2006) found that parent education was negatively associated with racist attitudes, and college students' own interracial contact in a university context was associated with more positive racial attitudes over time.…”